“We are not gays!” proclaims Mugabe at the UN

In an embarrassing and tragic display of bigotry on the world stage, Zimbabwe’s decrepit president has lashed out LGBT people at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday.

In his speech, Robert Mugabe railed at what he insists is the imposition of homosexuality onto the African continent by the West. He made it clear that he believes that LGBT people are in effect excluded from having human rights.

“Respecting and upholding human rights is the obligation of all states, and is enshrined in the United Nations charter,” said the 91-year-old.

“Nowhere does the charter abrogate the right to some to sit in judgement over others, in carrying out this universal obligation. In that regard, we reject the politicisation of this important issue and the application of double standards to victimise those who dare think and act independently of the self-anointed prefects of our time.”

He went on to say, “We equally reject attempts to prescribe ‘new rights’ that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions, and beliefs,” before looking up from his text and proclaiming, “We are not gays!”

He presumably meant African people. Then, without any apparent awareness of the irony of words, Mugabe added: “Cooperation and respect for each other will advance the cause of human rights worldwide. Confrontation, vilification, and double-standards will not.”

In Mugabe’s world, he is the real victim for being pressured to accept that LGBT people have the right to freely live and love without discrimination.

The speech, which was punctuated by pauses and stumbles, comes soon after the president delivered the wrong speech at the opening of Parliament earlier this month. He failed to realise that he was reading the same speech he had delivered at the State of the Nation Address the previous month.

Mugabe has previously stated that gay people are “worse than pigs and dogs” and that they “don’t have any human rights at all.”

Gay sex and public affection are illegal in Zimbabwe, with penalties of up to three years in jail. Same-sex marriage is also illegal, as entrenched in the country’s Constitution.

Watch Mugabe’s speech below (relevant section from 10.25.)